Gone Fishin'!

Last Saturday I took the boys to Cabela's for a free family fun day event in their parking lot. Considering it was already 80 degrees by 10am and very humid, I decided it sounded like some hot fun. The ad that I saw in the paper mentioned free fishing for kids (as in kids could fish for free, not that adults could fish for kids for free). I envisioned a handful of kiddie pools full of colorful plastic fish. If you "caught" one, you got a prize. Easy peasy. Well...I was wrong. And where was my mind? This was Cabela's afterall. They don't take fishing lightly.

We got to the designated area of the parking lot and were directed to a row of fishing reels and a woman handing out cups of worms. Real worms. Very wiggly worms. I got Miles squared away with his supplies and when Weston caught on to all of the excitement, he promptly through a tantrum until he had his own reel and cup of worms. The only thing that matched his size was the cup of wriggling worms, but he didn't mind. He held on to the fishing pole as best he could and scolded me for even thinking about helping.

I quickly went into full-fledged panic mode as I realized I was completely unprepared for this moment. My children were about to fish and I could do nothing to help them. I found another family that lives down the street from us and quickly latched on to them for help, as it was clear this wasn't their first rodeo. Then a Cabela's employee who happens to be a professional fisherman swooped in to further help save the day. He was our knight in shining armor! Well...our fisherman in a sporty weatherproof fishing shirt. He got Miles and Westy all set - worms on the hook and all - and proceeded to give us tips on what to do when the bobber started bobbing. Then suddenly it happened...Miles caught a fish!

He collected three little fishes and Weston caught one. All of the fish were released back into the pond (probably to be caught again...). Weston gave each of them a proper send-off by blowing dozens of kisses as they swam away. I thought about serving fish sticks for supper that night to celebrate our great success, but decided it might be a little risky. Instead we ate ice cream and talked about when we might be able to go fishing again. I'll have to check the schedule for our new fisherman friend and see when he's available :)